A maiden, two-day business to business (B2B) meet of registered homestays will be organised at Bolghatty Palace Hotel’s convention centre here in the first week of May next, providing a platform for owners to showcase their properties before a wide range of customers, travel agents and others.
“The B2B focusing on homestays is being hosted to drive home the point that homestays offer guests a unique hospitality, cultural and ethnic culinary experience unlike hotels and resorts. Most homestay owners are struggling to market their properties due to low budgets and inadequate exposure to professional marketing skills,” said M.P. Sivadathan, director of the Kerala Homestay and Tourism Society (Kerala HATS).
“Most homestays in Kerala are not known beyond the region. The business meet will also see homestay owners from other States and from places like Europe (better known as ‘bed and breakfast’ providers) participate. They can learn from each other and strike a rapport,” Mr. Sivadathan said.
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Homestay owners have for long been on the warpath protesting against the high tax structure and levy of commercial tariff for power and water usage, despite Kerala’s tourist season confined to the months from October to February. Discerning owners have also been demanding that the government registration and classification based on amenities and cleanliness be made mandatory, to weed out unscrupulous ones.
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Details of the B2B will be finalised at the sixth annual conference of Kerala HATS on October 25 at the Cochin Club in Fort Kochi.